Andy Piascik
As the United States imposes sanctions on Russia and moves to do
likewise to Venezuela, it’s essential to keep in mind which country it
is that’s the most destructive and dangerous in the world today. When
such questions have been posed in international polls in recent decades,
the answer overwhelmingly is the United States. Not Iran, North Korea,
Syria, Cuba, Venezuela, Russia or any of the many other nations the
ruling class and corporate media here regularly demonize, but the United
States.
People
in the global South know this all too well from the long and brutal
history of US foreign policy. Because we live in such a closed society,
however, where critical analysis of imperialism is by definition
excluded from discussions in Washington and the national media, people
here must search long and hard for such information. Should information
of this sort seep into the mainstream, ruling elites invariably vilify
it and those imparting it just as they vilify international figures they
regard as enemies.
According
to Washington, sanctions are being considered against Venezuela because
of repressive measures and violence that is attributed almost
exclusively to the government. In reality, counterrevolutionaries are
responsible for the majority of those killed including at least one
death of a motorcyclist decapitated by wire strung across a street. This
tactic was suggested by retired General Angel Vivas, who has become a
hero of the counterrevolution for his armed defiance of the government’s
attempt to arrest him for the motorcyclist’s death. Simultaneously, the
US has imposed sanctions against Russia and is threatening military
escalation in response to the incursion into Crimea.